The Dream
by harrietdraco
Summary: A story about a dream, written by moi! A girl from the 1940's has a dream about a war-ridden 2013.


The Dream

EPILOGUE

It's strange how one thing can change you, how one thing can turn your life upside down. It happens to most people in their lifetime – usually the death of a loved one. For me, it was something so ordinary and so overlooked that many people still ridicule me for it. For me, it was a dream.

It was 67 years ago. I was only 13. My life was happy enough – I had food, water, shelter, people that loved me, but it was destroyed by one thing – my visions. My mother, God bless her, called it a gift, but I only thought of it as a curse. They always came to me in dreams, and usually came true three or four days later. Some of them terrified me. Once, I dreamt that my dog, Sammy, a beautiful Labrador, would be run over by the butcher's boy, so I kept him inside, but he ended up falling down the stairs and breaking his neck. No matter what I tried to do to prevent them, the result was always the same.

The sound of metal against metal woke me with a start. Sitting up, with remnants of sleep still clouding my sight, it didn't take me long to realise that I was having a vision. The air was thick was smoke and the ground beneath me was smothered with fragments of wood and metal. I went into a crouching position so they wouldn't spear me. I was fully clothed already – I go to bed dressed, as I wouldn't want to be seen in my nightgown. Hearing a scream in the distance, I squinted through the smoke and saw a boy, with a face my age but strange clothing, kneeling over something and sobbing loudly. I stood up silently, brushed my fringe out of my eyes, and tiptoed over. He saw me but didn't move from his spot. In shock, I realised that he was kneeling over a body – the body of a young woman, about twenty. A long, silver pole was protruding through her chest, and pinning her to the ground. I shuffled closer, preparing to ask the time and date. It was always the hardest part – people thought I was crazy.

"Excuse me, sir, but what is the date today?"

He looked at me in confusion, but managed to stammer, "J-July. July the 11th."

I gasped. The visions were always at least three days before it happened, but it was already the 10th.

"And the year?" I encouraged him to answer.

He opened his mouth to reply, but started sobbing anew.

"The year?" I asked again. I needed to know.

"2013."

My breath caught in my throat and I stumbled back. It wasn't possible. If what he said was right, I was 67 years in the future – at least it would give his strange clothing a reason.

"Are you sure?" I whispered, and he nodded. I tried to register what he was saying, but in vain. I just couldn't believe that I was foreseeing what would happen in the 21st century – wasn't the world meant to end before then, anyway? However, I had bigger problems at hand, and the first one I had to deal with was the boy.

"Are you alright?" I asked, kneeling next to him. He looked at me sarcastically.

"Do I _look _like I'm alright?! They've just killed my sister! The only person I had left! She promised she'd always be there for me, and now she's _dead_! How am I meant to carry on? Find food, protect myself? It's over!" he shouted, wiping his eyes then standing up.

"I'm sorry," I said, on the verge of tears. "Is there any way I can help?"

"I… I guess you could help me carry her body back home."

"Alright."

The boy picked up her head, and I picked up her feet. Close up, you could see the blood staining her shirt. It only took about five minutes to reach his house – even carrying an extra load. Most of the windows were smashed, and the door was missing, with a cardboard sheet in its place. He kicked the sheet over and we stepped inside. I was immediately hit by the stench of rot – more specifically, rotting flesh. He led me into a large room to the right of the door, and I dropped the woman's feet, doubling over and throwing up almost straightaway. There was a huge table in the centre of the room, and on it were four bodies – a man and a woman, a child, and a baby. They were all mauled in some way. The baby was missing an arm, and both the man and woman had hardly any face left. The child was the worst – too sickening to describe here. I couldn't even make out the gender.

"My family," the boy said, smiling wryly, and then collapsing against the wall as his body started shaking with sobs once more. With nothing to say that would help the situation, I simply sat next to him, and waited until he stopped.

My eyes fluttered open and I yawned sleepily. It wasn't until I saw the boy leaning on my shoulder, also asleep, that I realised where I was.

BANG.

I jumped at the loud noise, waking the boy up, who sat up and rubbed his eyes.

BANG.

I stood up slowly, craning my neck out of the door. There was a group of people in the street outside, stood in a circle. They each had a drum.

BANG.

A woman with short brown hair.

BANG.

A man with dreadlocks.

BANG.

I realised they were taking it in turns to bang on their drum – the gap between each beat was gradually getting shorter, until it was continuous.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

And so forth. I took hold of the boy's hand and pulled him up, at the same time noticing that the drummers were all wearing exactly the same uniform – browns and greys and greens, in fact just like the camouflage helmets that the soldiers were wearing just last year. I heard the boy gasp behind me, and turned round to see a look of pure terror on his face. "We need to leave. Now," he whispered, edging out of the door then sprinting down the hall into another room. I followed him, with the banging still in the background.

We were in a kitchen – but it was nothing like my kitchen at home. It was all shiny metals and polished wood.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Later," he said, as he opened another cardboard door and I followed him outside.

As soon as we stepped out, he broke into a sprint, cutting down a narrow passageway that desperately needed clearing of litter. He took a sharp right, so sudden in fact that I almost missed it, into another passageway. It was clearer but extremely bumpy.

We carried on running for at least half an hour – by the time we stopped, I was struggling to stay standing. He barely seemed tired. As I caught my breath again, I looked around, realising we were in some sort of arena. I looked at him in confusion, so he started to explain.

"This is Area 4. There are 5 areas in this district, but this is the safest. Those people you saw are called Sikes. The banging of the drums was their warning ritual – it means the Follas are coming."

"What are Follas?" I asked.

"Do you not know anything?!" he said.

I sighed. "Maybe it would be easier if I explained first. I'm from 1946. For me, this is a dream – a dream that is going to come true. I have visions of the future – obviously, this one is of 2013."

His eyes widened, and I nodded in reassurance.

"Oh. Well, um, I'll start from the beginning." He said.

"Last year, on September 5th, the Chancellor of Germany declared war - on the whole of Europe, the USA, Australia and China. Those four united to make the Sikes – that's us. Everyone else in the world, with the exception of Japan as it was destroyed by a nuclear bomb on the first day, joined to form the Follas. This is World War 3. Thankfully, there were a select few who deactivated every nuclear weapon with the use of some incredibly advanced tech a few days after the end of Japan. At least it means the world won't be completely destroyed. Now, we only have old-fashioned weapons, but it's still war."

I was struggling to take it all in, but nodded him on.

"England is the Follas's main threat, which is why we are the most secure. We have a network of spies all over the world, gathering information on the Follas's plans. We civilians don't know much – just that when the Sikes bang their drums, we have to get to safety, and fast. The 5 areas are invisible – literally invisible, the cloaking device was invented last week. There's only one way to get in, which is to know the way, and to have one of these."

He took something out of his pocket and gave it to me. It was a small, silver ball – suddenly a needle came out of it and pricked my hand, then retreated back into the ball with my blood on it.

"What did it do?" I asked.

"It took a sample of your blood, which will be sent directly to the SSO – Sike Security Organisation. When you enter an arena, a nano-robot takes a sample of your blood and compares it to every sample of blood in its databank. If you're there, you're in. If you're not, you get disintegrated. Some people suggested using the robot as a weapon, and we tried it, but the robot was programmed as a blood-sampler, not a soldier, so refused to fight. If this ball gets into the hands of a Follas, it self-destructs. I don't know how."

My head was spinning – all the information was giving me a headache. A bad one, too.

"How do you know when it's safe to go out?" I asked him. "And what's your name?! If I'm going to sticking with you, I'd better know."

"We hear the drums again," he said, then smiled. "And my name is Matt."

"Ella," I replied, and we shook hands then fell onto the floor in fits of laughter.

It was 3 days until the drums sounded again. We were provided with just enough food and water, and given a mat and blanket to sleep with. When we stepped out it wasn't hard to tell that the battle had been long and hard. We had heard the sounds of planes and bombs every night, and sat in fear, hoping that the cloaking device would continue doing as the name suggested.

It turned out that Matt wasn't actually living in his house – he was hiding out in an empty warehouse with a bunch of other teenagers. It was underground, which protected it from bombs. He had lived there with his sister as well, until she panicked during one of the battles and ran out of Area 4, quickly being stabbed by a Follas foot soldier. Matt had to wait until the battle was over, until she was dead for certain, until there was nothing he could do to save her. When he told me this, I saw the guilt and sadness in his eyes.

There were no more battles for two months – the Follas were focussing on large cities, like London and Manchester, rather than small towns. It still confuses me how almost a year passed in the dream, whereas it was merely hours in my real life. It was April 2014 when I returned to my real life, and that day was the worst day of my life – my dream life and my real life.

It was a hot morning already, I thought, as I yawned and sat up, shaking Matt awake as well. We were in Area 4 again, and had been for the past week – the battle going on outside was going to be the deciding one, and everybody knew it, which was why tension in the arena was particularly high. There were no bombs at all last night, so everyone was expecting to be let out soon. And they were right – almost immediately after I rolled up my sleeping bag, the drums sounded, and everybody rushed to the exit to be back in the fresh air.

The crowd went silent. My shoulders slacked and my mouth dropped open, unable to believe what I was seeing – complete and utter destruction. Literally. There was nothing left. Not even rubble. We were standing on dead land. Everyone turned to look at the group of Sikes next to us, then a gasp rippled through all the once excited people as the distinctive gold band on all the 'Sikes' shoulders told us that they were not Sikes at all, but Follas.

Chaos erupted as everyone started sprinting in different directions, desperately trying to escape. It was no use. A group of Follas parted to reveal a machine gun, which was already set up and being manned by 4 men. They started to shoot. Matt and I sprinted for our lives, the screams of our fallen comrades spurring us on.

We were fast, but not fast enough. I suddenly felt a searing pain in my leg and realised that a bullet had hit it, going straight through my calf. The pain dulled my senses, so much that I didn't even realise I was running alone. Matt was gone. I turned quickly and started sprinting back the way I came, screaming his name and trying to ignore the burning sensation that was spreading up my leg. I tripped over, landing face first on the floor, and realised with a shock that I was right next to a tall, skinny, brown-haired boy – Matt. I turned him over so he was facing upwards, seeing the red liquid that was covering his ragged shirt. It was blood. He had been shot in the chest. He wasn't dead yet – he blinked slowly, and attempted to smile.

"Ella. You should have run," he whispered, and I could only just hear him.

"Matt, no, don't die, Matt, please! I can't go on without you!" I screamed, collapsing next to him and sobbing.

"There's nothing you can do now. Ella, please just run. Then at least one of us has a chance."

Black holes were starting to appear in the air – tell-tale signs that I was about to wake up. I looked around in panic, desperately thinking of something to say. The black holes were getting bigger and I knew I didn't have long left.

"Matt, I – I love you!" I sobbed, then woke up, as _I love you too_, the dying words of my best friend, my soul mate, my other half, faded away into the darkness.


End file.
